6io Veterinary Medicine. 



used repeatedly, as the eggs develop into seed ticks in 15 days in 

 hot weather, and at once attack cattle. 



A stockowner who, independently of his fellows, adopts one of 

 the above expedients in an infested district, is however con- 

 fronted by the risk of the infection of his herd, by the accidental 

 or careless contact of his cattle with outside ones, and especially 

 with the places where they have been. A broken fence and the 

 entrance of tick infested cattle, or the escape of his tick-free 

 cattle into infested lands, will be the death warrant of all that 

 have not been previously exposed to the disease. Another con- 

 sideration is that this rigid seclusion of the protected herd must 

 be continued indefinitely. so long as ticks are maintained anywhere 

 in the district. The protected animals cannot be driven over a 

 highway without exposing them to almost certain death. Even 

 if a group of adjacent stockowners agree to purify their respective 

 farms, they cannot debar their less careful neighbors from using 

 the highways for tick-infected stock, nor from turning such out 

 on adjoining fields. The veriest scrubs, admitted to the high- 

 ways, woods and unfenced grounds, keep up the general diffu- 

 sion of the fever germ and its tick bearer and undo the best di- 

 rected efforts of any combination of owners of high class and 

 valuable stock. 



Well directed legislation, excluding cattle for one or two years, 

 from all woods and unenclosed lands, and enforcing some one of 

 the available methods for the clearing of fenced and stocked lands 

 (cultivation, pasturage by cattle on alternate years, frequent dip- 

 ping or smearing, passing the stock through a succession of pens), 

 could be made to put an end for all time to the obnoxious tick. 

 If even some other than bovine animals should be discovered to 

 harbor the boophilus and pyroplasma it could be included in the 

 prohibition and the work made complete. The results would far 

 more than compensate for any necessary outlay. Illinois, with 

 55,414 square miles of area has over 3,000,000 cattle. The coast 

 states from Virginia to Texas, with Arkansas, Indian Territory 

 and Oklahoma, amount to 767,215 square miles, and in the same 

 ratio should sustain 43,340,040 head. A stock of 25,000,000 at 

 $20 per head would amount to a capital of $500,000,000. Im- 

 mune from the pyroplasma these cattle would draw freely on the 

 best blood of the north and tinder the milder skies would compete 



